california here we come!

the kids and i took our long awaited california trip in april!  daddy was supposed to come along, but he got stuck at work, and totally missed out!

we flew out of columbus (don't ask) really early in the morning, so we stayed at a hotel the night before and took a taxi to the airport.  before bed, the kids swam for a bit.  

when we arrived, we had a long car ride back to aunt elisa's house, but we enjoyed the ocean views and other cool things to see, and talked about all the things we wanted to do on our trip.

our first day, we went to the beach.  it wasn't exactly a warm day, so there wasn't a whole lot of swimming, if any, but we liked playing on the sand.  and one of these days, i really need to learn about the tide.  we had just set up our blanket and were getting settled in, and a wave came right up to us!  we tried to grab as much as we could out of the water, but somethings ended up wet anyway.  oh well, only take to the beach what can possibly get wet! 

he's showing us the tunnel he made, see his hand poking out?  the sun was too bright in his eyes for a good shot.

before we headed home from the beach, we hiked along these cliffs.  they were pretty amazing!  this is joshua tree state park, if i'm not mistaken, and the rocks are very soft here.  jonny liked taking small rocks and throwing them onto other rocks and watching them explode!  we tried to find a path up to the top, but it kept eluding us, and we (or at least i) was getting very tired of walking!  but they were really cool to look at! and they come right down to the beach and out to see!

we passed someone flying this enormous kite on the beach!  it was kite on kite so high into the sky!  i am not that skilled in my kite flying to be able to handle that one!